Liberal Democrat Leader Charles Kennedy (1999-2006)

When Paddy Ashdown retired in 1999 as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in the United Kingdom, the party elected Charles Kennedy to assume the leadership mantle. Kennedy led the Lib Dems to one of their best results ever in the 2001 election, where the Lib Dems increased their Parliament seats by 52 and had 18.3% of the vote.

The increase came from former Conservative and Labour supporters who felt more drawn to the Lib Dem position on many issues that were similar to previous positions held by the Conservatives and Labour in the manifestos. The issues were mainly the opposition to the war in Iraq as well as a more open government, considerable electoral reform, and more protection of individual civil liberties.

With the increase in seats and percentage of the votes, Kennedy expressed the new goal of the Lib Dems was to replace the Conservatives as the official opposition party. The Lib Dems were poised for the first time in history to move out of third party status in United Kingdom politics.

Although the Liberal Democratic Party received almost 25% of the popular vote, they only earned 10% of the seats in the House of Commons, receiving 62 seats. Even though many considered this a defeat of tragic proportions, the reason was the “first past the post” election policy, which hampered the Lib Dem efforts.